U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis lands in Kabul on March 13, 2018 on an unannounced trip to Afghanistan. REUTERS/Phil Stewart

WASHINGTON - U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis accused Iran on Thursday of “mucking around” in Iraq’s May parliamentary election, in which Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi is seeking another term after a successful, U.S.-backed war against Islamic State militants.

The ballot will decide Iraq’s leader for the next four years, when Baghdad will be faced with rebuilding cities and towns seized from Islamic State, preventing the militants’ return and addressing the sectarian and economic divisions that fueled the conflict.

Among Abadi’s challengers are former Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and Hadi al-Amiri, a former transportation minister – both of whom are among Iran’s closest allies in neighboring Iraq.​​Mattis stopped short of detailing whom Iran sought to influence but said it was doing so by channeling cash into Iraqi politics.

The Islamic State (IS) appears to be staging a comeback in parts of Iraq, which could endanger the country's oil deal with Iran.

Hamid Hosseini, the Iranian secretary-general of the Iran-Iraq Chamber of Commerce, warned in late February that the countries' plan can't be implemented fully because of security concerns. The countries signed a bilateral agreement in July 2017 to install a pipeline to transport Kirkuk’s crude oil to Iran to be refined. In the meantime, the oil is being transported by trucks, which are vulnerable to attacks.

The Kurdish military, or peshmerga forces, took control of Kirkuk in 2014 after Iraqi forces fled as IS swept through the area. But in October, Iraqi forces reclaimed the oil-rich territory from the Kurds.​IS has been blamed for numerous recent attacks in the area. On Feb. 19, IS fighters ambushed a convoy of the Baghdad government's Shiite Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) in the Hawija district, southwest of Kirkuk, killing 27. On Feb. 27, gunmen had targeted the Turkmen Front with a rocket shell. Since Hosseini's warning, security has deteriorated both in Kirkuk and Hawija. Local authorities have called for military enforcement.

George Nader, 58, traveled to Moscow in 2012, telling Russian interlocutors that he represented Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and the deal should be negotiated through him, according to two Iraqi sources. Nader’s role in the deal was controversial to Iraqi officials because Iraq’s minister of defense was in Russia to conduct the negotiations, and they were unaware that Maliki was working with Nader to bypass official channels.​One of the Iraqi sources, a former Iraqi official who spoke to Al-Monitor on condition that he not be named, personally witnessed Nader’s interactions with Maliki in their Moscow hotel when he accompanied Maliki to Moscow in October 2012 to sign the arms deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Nader’s career as a deal broker in Iraq ran from the mid-2000s until Maliki left office in 2014, the Iraqi sources said. Nader then became an adviser to the powerful Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan. It is in that capacity that Nader’s meetings with members of the incoming Donald Trump administration in 2016-2017 — including Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, former national security adviser Michael Flynn and former chief strategist Steve Bannon — brought Nader to Mueller’s attention.

​The Iraqi city of Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province and a former stronghold of Islamic State’s (IS), was liberated after fierce battles between IS militants and government forces on December 27, 2015. More than six months of fighting caused wide-scale damage to the infrastructure of the city and many houses were levelled in the city, where around half a million people once lived.

In February 2016, a United Nations (UN) assessment found that nearly every building in the suburbs of the city was damaged or destroyed. The UN analysis for satellite images of Ramadi showed that nearly 5,700 buildings in the city and its outskirts were damaged in mid-2014, while around 2,000 were completely destroyed. Local officials revealed that all water, electricity, sewage and other infrastructure projects - such as bridges, government facilities, hospitals and schools - suffered some damages.

Following the recapture of Ramadi from IS, the UN and local authorities planned to rebuild health, water and energy services in the city. However, two years after the recapture of the city from IS, and despite many substantial contributions from various sources to reconstruct the city, Ramadi still resembles a city that has just witnessed fierce battles. The outskirts of the city are completely destroyed, and the rubble is still blocking many streets there, while many residents cannot return to their houses because they are totally destroyed.

Despite the Iraqi government promising to pay compensation to residents to help with rebuilding their properties, there are no signs of hope for reconstruction of the city. The locals face a difficult and complex process to get the government promised compensation. They have to pay bribes to government appointed committees, responsible for the assessment of the damage inflicted to their properties by the military operations led by the US forces and Iraqi forces backed by the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF).

More than eight months after the battle ended the government hasn't restored electricity or running water in Mosul's Old City. Hundreds of residents with nowhere else to go have come back to try to live in their damaged houses. Jane Arraf/NPR

Ziad Abdul Qader came back to his house in the Iraqi city of Mosul recently to find a pile of charred human bones in the courtyard. He'd seen the bodies of the two ISIS fighters when he came to check on the house months ago and hurriedly left. When he returned in mid-February, they had been set on fire.

"A group was going around burning bodies because they were worried about disease," he says.​He plans to shovel the bones into a bag and throw it in the trash. The macabre pile is just another obstacle for the former shop owner struggling to repair his damaged home eight months after U.S.-backed Iraqi forces drove ISIS from Mosul.

If some of the city's residents initially welcomed ISIS and its promise of good governance when it took over Iraq's second-biggest city four years ago, that dissipated as the regime became increasingly more brutal. It's difficult to find anyone who speaks well of them now.

Barry McCaffrey has the best resume of any retired combat general in the United States Army. The son of a distinguished general, he attended Phillips Academy, in Andover, Massachusetts, and West Point, and in 1966 was assigned to South Vietnam as a platoon leader. He served two combat tours, winning two Distinguished Service Crosses, two Silver Stars, and three Purple Hearts.​He returned from Vietnam with a shattered left arm, which was saved only after two years of operations and rehabilitation. McCaffrey's career continued to be exemplary: he earned a master's degree, taught at West Point, and, as he moved up through the ranks, became an outspoken leader within the Army for women's rights and the rights of minorities.

He had, as the journalist Rick Atkinson has noted, "the chiseled good looks of a recruiting poster warrior: hooded eyes; dark, dense brows; a clean, strong jawline; hair thick and gun-metal gray." He radiated command presence.

The body of Aswad Khudair al-Sayehi in a well in Iraq’s Salah al-Din province on Feb 2, 2018. (Social Media)

The body of Aswad Khudair al-Sayehi found in a well in Iraq’s Salah al-Din province on Feb 2, 2018. (Social Media)

The legitimate judicial and security forces, in any country around the world, are responsible for bringing those who commits crimes to justice in fair and public trials. However, there is a different judicial process in Iraq when the government paramilitary forces commit crimes.​A month ago, some Iraqi activists on social media and Arabic news outlet [Arabic link] reported the horrendous murder of Aswad Khudair al Sayehi, in al Naima town, east of Salah al Din Province, 180km north of Baghdad. Aswad was killed after he had been tortured and humiliated and his body dumped in an abandon well.

After the body of the Aswad was found, it has been widely believed that the perpetrators are members of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF). Sheikh Mutlaq al-Shammari, a tribal leader of al-Naima town, has openly accused the Shi'i Badr militia, a faction in PMF led by Hadi al-Amiri, of the kidnapping and the torture of the victim in such hideous manner.​However, investigations have indicated that the perpetrator of this crime was Sabah Mutashar al Hassan al Shammari, the commander of the Tribal Mobilization Forces, a Sunni faction allied with PMF in the majority Sunni province of Salah al-Din.

​Six months after about 1,400 foreign women and children surrendered with Islamic State (ISIS) fighters to Iraqi security forces, Iraq’s courts are sentencing the women to life in prison and even to death for non-violent crimes.

It’s just one indicator of how people viewed as colluding with ISIS are receiving unfair trials.

The women have been charged with illegally entering Iraq and, in some cases aiding, abetting or having membership in ISIS, which carries the penalty of life in prison or death under Iraq’s counterterrorism law.

There has been a flurry of activity caused by the comments made by Green’s parliamentarians Adam Bandt and Richard di Natale over recently installed Liberal Senator Jim Molan. The facts relate to the Australian situation, but the issue has wider ramifications.

The ostensible reason for the attack on Molan was his sharing of two videos originating from a Neo Nazi far right group in the United Kingdom.

Bandt, who later withdrew his remarks, called Molan a “coward” and said that Molan should be prosecuted for his service in the Iraq war. In the Senate di Natale accused Molan of overseeing a “humanitarian catastrophe” nearly 15 years ago during the assault on Fallujah, Iraq.

Di Natale said that there was “a question that needs to be answered, and the only way with answer that is through an enquiry.”​Liberal politicians, from the Prime Minister downward, came to Molan’s defence, claiming that he was a “great Australian soldier” who “stood up for freedom.”

The Iraqi government’s postwar blueprint for reconstruction has been leaked to FRB-I with less than two weeks before Kuwait hosts the first donor conference in the history of the Gulf and Arabian peninsula. Jointly published by the Council of Ministers and the National Investment Commission, the plan’s framework is at best untested, rickety and unrealistic.

Those familiar with previous proposed infrastructure projects throughout Iraq’s history will be quick to recognise that few new ideas will land at tables where lending agencies, donors and states will be seated. The government hopes to lure investors back to jumpstart projects that were abandoned due to scarce funds, resources or circumstances that wars invite.The patchwork of information formulated at Iraqi premier Haider al Abadi request, fails to specify a deadline, schedule or the means needed for reconstruction. The greatest number of projects proposed are agricultural, followed by projects that fall under the oil and refinery sector. The lowest number goes to the ‘tourism and recreational’ sector, followed closely by housing. Oil-based investments are prioritised over the non-oil sector which, if not bridged, will deepen the gulf.

Extravagant proposals to fix and build new railway lines also raises the fear of a national plan that is out of touch with the security arrangements that citizens have learned to organize their lives around. Until national security matters are dealt with, the vision of crosscountry rail lines is little more than a pipe dream as a country littered with checkpoints attests to. It does create greater chances of generating income by commercialising the pilgrimage season to compete with other religious centres in the region.